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Jason Kenney and his United Conservatives channelled the angst of an angry electorate to soar to a majority government in Alberta's election Tuesday and relegate Rachel Notley's NDP to the history books as a one-and-done government.
The UCP, formed two years ago by a merger of the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties, held its rural and Calgary seats and took back many of the breakthrough NDP wins in those regions in 2015.
"What a great day for the province of Alberta," Kenney told cheering supporters after riding into a jammed event centre at Calgary's Stampede Grounds in a blue pickup truck.
"Today our great province has sent a message to Canada and the world that Alberta is open for business."
Early on his his speech, the premier-designate delivered a warning to environmentalists, accusing them of being funded by foreign interests who are trying to shut down the Alberta oil and gas industry. He pledged to launch a public inquiry into their activities, singling out several charitable organizations including the David Suzuki Foundation and the Tides Foundation, prompting a roar of applause from supporters in Calgary.
Notley's NDP held on to much of its traditional base in Edmonton, which it swept four years ago. But cabinet ministers and backbenchers went down elsewhere.
Notley, speaking to supporters at her Edmonton headquarters, touted her government's accomplishments and said she will stay on as NDP leader.
"We have fundamentally changed the politics of this province forever," she said.
"It has been an honour to serve as your premier and it will be an honour to serve as the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition."
Notley said she had congratulated Kenney and "assured him that we will do everything that we can to ensure the transition to a new government is smooth and productive."
"I wish him and his government well. We all do. We must. Because we all love Alberta," she said, her family behind her on stage as supporters chanted "Rachel! Rachel!"
Kenney, who won his riding in Calgary-Lougheed, is a former federal Conservative cabinet minister under Stephen Harper.
He takes the top job after winning on a jobs, jobs, jobs message and a promise to wage war on all who oppose Alberta's oil and gas industry, particularly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Kenney has derisively called it "the Trudeau-Notley alliance" —a partnership he says has turned Alberta into a doormat for Trudeau and other oil industry foes in return for no more than a faint and as yet unrealized promise of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to the west coast.
Kenney has promised to kill Alberta's homegrown carbon tax, fight the federal carbon tax in court, and do what he can to help the federal Conservatives defeat Trudeau in the federal October vote.
"There is a deep frustration in this province, a sense that we have contributed massively to the rest of Canada, but that everywhere we turn we are being blocked in and pinned down," said Kenney.
In a statement, Trudeau congratulated Kenney and said he will work with the new government to create jobs, build infrastructure, and grow business and industry.
"Together, we will address issues of importance to Albertans and all Canadians, including ...taking decisive action on climate change while getting our natural resources to market."
Once Kenney is sworn in, Canada will have no women premiers.
Notley's NDP was trying to win a second mandate after toppling the wheezing, scandal-scarred 44-year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015 by winning 54 seats in the 87-seat legislature.
In the previous two decades, the NDP had never been able to elect more than four MLAs, and had been shut out of Calgary since the 1980s.
Interest in the election was high as leaders launched personal attacks while promoting their platforms as the best blueprint for Alberta's fragile economy.
Almost 700,000 people voted in advance polls, well above the record 235,000 who did in 2015.
The province, once a money-making dynamo thanks to sky-high oil prices, has been struggling for years with sluggish returns on royalties, reduced drilling activity and higher unemployment levels.
Kenney argued that Notley's government made a bad situation worse with higher taxes, more regulations and increases in minimum wage.
Notley, in turn, said Kenney's plan to freeze spending and pursue more private-care options in health care would have a profound impact on students and patients.
Notley also tried to make Kenney's character an issue. A number of his candidates either quit or apologized for past comments that were anti-LGBTQ, anti-Islamic or sympathetic to white nationalism.
On the margins of the campaign were the centrist Alberta and Liberal parties. Both elected single members to the legislature four years ago, but failed to win any seats this time.
Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel lost in Edmonton-McClung and Liberal Leader David Khan failed to win in Calgary Mountain-View.
Kenney now turns his attention to a spring-summer sitting and a platform that includes undoing most of the signature elements of the last four years of changes under the NDP, starting with the provincial carbon tax on fossil-fuelled heating and gas at the pumps.
He has promised to repeal the NDP increase on corporate income tax and drop it to eight per cent. The minimum wage for youth is to be cut. Farm safety and injury compensation plans for farm workers is to be abolished and replaced. A $3.7-billion plan to lease rail cars to ship more oil is to be cancelled.
The climate change program is to be dismantled in favour of a plan to tax the emissions-intensity of major greenhouse gas operations. A large medical lab in Edmonton, part of a plan to consolidate tests, won't proceed. Changes to overtime pay are to be rolled back.
A sweeping overhaul of school curriculums is also expected to be on hold.
Kenney plans to fire a shot across the bow of the B.C. government on his first day in office. He has said he will proclaim a law passed by Notley’s government but never proclaimed.
The bill gives Alberta the power to reduce oil flows to B.C. in retaliation for its opposition to the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
with files from National Observer
Editor's note: This article was updated at 8:30 a.m. ET on April 17, 2019 to include additional details about Jason Kenney's comments about the David Suzuki Foundation and other charities.
Comments
With stuntman Kenney in control, I think it's safe to say the oil industry will meet its demise. It's a shame, really. Alberta knows how to plan ahead for a lot of things, and yet they did not plan for the oil market.
As for the pipeline, it could not be branded as an extremist idea under Notley, but it can under Kenney.
Kenney & his supporters will be remembered as yet another example of how demagoguery, deep willful lack of vision & foresight condemned Alberta to many more boom&bust economic cycles.
Their unwillingness to consider diversifying Alberta's economy & decoupling it from its dependency on fossil fuels is irresponsible & appalling!
Jason Kenney, I will launch a public inquiry into your activities, singling out CAPP and AER, focussing on the climate injustice perpetrated by you and UCP. Citizens of Alberta already suffer from the wholesale destruction of Alberta's environment. What you have claimed to be your future actions will further damage the lives of not only Alberta's citizens, but all of Canada, all of the world. Climate lawsuits are quickly becoming both actionable AND recoverable. Start saving your money! And don't give it away to fossil fuel shareholders, you'll need a lot of money to clean up that disaster you are furthering.
This is actually a very good opportunity for independent watchdogs or similar forces to keep an eye on the Alberta legislature right now.
Does Alberta have a provincial Environment Commissioner? Somebody to document Kenney's intended atrocities. If yes, not for much longer, just like his buddy Doug.
Not too long after Notley's original threat to "turn off the taps" (childish grammatical construction that it is) it was announced that BC was making arrangements to purchase gas and oil products by way of Washington state, who are also opposed to Trans-Mountain.
Seconds after Kenney announces that he's proclaiming Notley's bill I would like to see BC announce that henceforth all BC's oil and gas purchases will be made from Washington state.
Let Kenney explain the shortfall in revenue to his brain damaged province.
Let us not wax nostalgic over the AB NDP. The deeper Rachel Notley waded into pipeline politics, the harsher her govt's rhetoric against environmentalists, scientists, and ordinary Canadians concerned about their children's future:
Notley on David Suzuki's honarary degree from UofA: 'If I'd been on the senate, I wouldn't have personally voted for it."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rachel-notley-suzuki-honorary-d…
Notley stopped just short of calling Tzeporah Berman a liar:
"Notley says she needs to go [to the Alberta Teachers Association conference], in her words, 'to counter misinformation and ensure that the whole story is told.'" (Canadian Press)
The science supports Berman's position on climate change, not the NDP's.
Climate change is a global emergency. We need to heed the alarm.
Notley, Trudeau, and Kenney are waging war against the science, the overwhelming evidence, the irrefutable facts, inconvenient truths, and the latest IPCC report.
"Alberta’s Minister of Education David Eggen said in an emailed statement to StarMetro that 'when it comes to Alberta’s oilsands, Berman is dead wrong.'"
Of course, the science supports Berman's position on climate change, not Eggen's. Yet Eggen was in charge of AB's curriculum rewrite.
When it comes to educating young people in Alberta, inconvenient science ranks a distant second to politics and corporate power.
Notley's barely disguised insults towards environmentalists like Berman and Greenpeace's Mike Hudema didn't go unnoticed.
"How a Rachel Notley volunteer wound up on a bridge blockading an oil tanker"
• www.nationalobserver.com/2018/07/12/opinion/how-rachel-notley-volunteer…
Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips co-wrote the foreword for the 2004 book "An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away" by Mike Hudema, a campaigner for Greenpeace Alberta. Phillips has since minimized her role and renounced those views.
• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/shannon-phillips-helped-with-so…
Notley even attacks her federal NDP colleagues over pipelines.
Notley called the Leap Manifesto naïve, ill-considered, and tone-deaf.
https://globalnews.ca/news/2644036/ndp-leap-manifesto-naive-ill-conside…
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
The NDP have done worse than nothing. Notley took them over to the Dark Side.
One expects servile behavior from conservatives. For the NDP to put its progressive stamp on petro-politics goes beyond the pale.
"You're known by the company you keep."
Conspiracy theorist Vivian Krause: "I have been working since July 2018 with Notley’s govt to provide information and assist her team in taking the necessary steps to break the pipeline gridlock."
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/vivian-krause-rachel-notley-…
Look who bought into Vivian Krause's absurd fantasies:
"'I’m frustrated by it, of course,' Notley says of the [anti-oilsands] campaign. 'Vivian Krause (the B.C. researcher) and people like her have done a good job of really laying bare the details of this and really showing us the degree to which this had been going on and building over time.'"
Question for AB progressives:
Notley was on side with Vivian Krause. How about you?
The second domino has fallen! First ,Ontario, with the election of Doug Ford.Then the election of Jason Kenny.
Beware, Canada! The tide of pseudo-Fascism is beginning in Canada. We've already seen what happened ,and continues to happen,in the U.S.;The wave of economic decline and consequent job loss caused by international market policies controlled by huge, oligarchic monopolies manipulating things for their own profit , leaving ordinary people wondering why their jobs dried up and fearing the future that awaits.
The type of politician represented by these two men is familiar south of the border.They will exploit any fear on the part of the electorate and hammer at them , demonizing people concerned about their children's future,projecting misinformation about climate change, the alleged dangers of having "foreigners invade" us, belittle the efforts of people like David Suzuki who desperately try to get people to recognize what science amply illustrates as the dangers to our continued existence and ultimately insult and degrade the citizens and democracy itself by manipulating public opinion in the most self-serving and cynical fashion to ignore the future in return for today's version of the bowl of pottage, short-term jobs built on a declining, harmful resource(fossil fuels) and ever-bloating corporate profits for the politicians who bought and paid for them. Nothing matters but re-election and greed.
A matter of a few years ago, the cry out of the west, in reply to the government - of -the -day's desire that the west become part of a plan for energy management for the benefit of the country as a whole was" Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark!". A cry borne of manipulative misinformation and fears trumped up by those who wouldn't profit by the move. Today is worse. The leaders( read manipulators) of these two provinces are but the tip of the iceberg. There are their exact clones out there , ready to drag out the slogans and tar brushes to incite unthinking reactions borne of fear and to paint anyone with valid ideas on fighting the base of these fears . They may not think of themselves as Fascist yet but give them time and a whole lot of money and they will "sound like the duck and walk like the duck".
The first step towards the dissolution of a society is to fear what you don't understand and the second step is to give unthinking and blind , uncritical support to demagogues who beat drums and promise that everybody will have that pie in the sky.
Think, people!!! These politicians are literally fat from easy living on the public purse and happy because, as Graham Steele , Retired NDP cabinet member in a previous Nova Scotia government, wrote in his book quoting old pols' advice to rookie politicians," Don't worry about scandals and such. The electorate. memory is only two months long. Hang tight!". This is the kind of leader who rises to the surface when times are hard. The rest of the time they swim near the bottom, sucking up what they can of the citizen's hard-won dollars.
great commentary Glen and very accurate.
It would be the third domino, actually. Quebec was the second.
Alberta will be ill served by this narsstic Trump - want too be. Big national oil has taken over the oil and gas reserves of Alberta to the point Alberta no longer controls the agenda. Albertans will soon find that their oil is priced at a discount.
People in rural areas voted overwhelmingly for the UCP. That probably includes farmers. Did they know they were voting for less safety and injury compensation for themselves?